Citizen article: Banking on a velodrome

From left, Peter Tregunno, Doug Corner and Kris Westwood are the promoters for a project to build a velodrome cycling facility in Ottawa. (Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen)

Published December 14, 2012

By Gord Holder, Ottawa Citizen

There was a six-day bicycle race at the old Ottawa Auditorium back in 1936.

Six three-man teams raced around the clock, covering nearly 5,000 kilometres on a wood track measuring six metres wide and featuring 55-degree banks at both ends.

Ottawa’s Roy McDonald headlined the winning team.

The bad news was, according to a Citizen report two days after the final lap, “that the race did not pay and that the promoters went into the hole on the project. As they were racing on a percentage basis, it therefore figures that the boys in the competition did not get very much for their trip to nowhere.”

That’s something to consider for cycling supporters who want to construct a new velodrome in the national capital.

The Ottawa Velodrome Project has filed documentation seeking status as a not-for-profit corporation.

Corporate officers Kris Westwood, Doug Corner and Peter Tregunno spent last weekend checking out Forest City Velodrome, which has operated since 2005 in the former Ice House arena at London, Ont.

That was part of Phase 1, which also involves determining whether an Ottawa velodrome can survive financially over the long-term, unlike the Montreal track built for the 1976 Olympics.

That facility cost $80 million, Ottawa backers say, but many years ago it was turned into the Biodome.

“Building the physical structure is actually the easy part,” says Tregunno, president of the Ottawa Bicycle Club. “The difficult part, and I think the part that is going to take our time, as we move along, is ensuring that we are building something that is sustainable by the community.”

Canada has two indoor wood-track velodromes at London and Burnaby, B.C., with a $52-million track built for the 2015 Pan Am Games scheduled to open a year earlier at Milton, Ont.

There are concrete-surface outdoor velodromes at Victoria, Edmonton and Calgary, plus outdoor wood tracks at Bromont, Que., and Dieppe, N.B.

The Bromont track was originally used in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympic Summer Games, another reminder of the necessity of a solid business plan, as is a defunct asphalt track at Delhi, Ont.

Tregunno, Corner and Westwood say London has such a plan. Forest City manager Rob Good says 80 per cent of its users are recreational cyclists, with remaining business coming from cycling clubs.

The Ottawa Bicycle Club, which has a track history of producing national-calibre racers, is Forest City’s single biggest Ontario club user. Athletes take seven-hour van rides between Ottawa and London roughly once a month to train on the 138-metre track.

“We have talked a lot about the community aspect, but we are also bike racers at heart, and we really see the value that facilities like this have in producing future champions, which has a lot of value, even though it would only be a tiny proportion of the users of the track,” says Westwood, a former national team director with Cycling Canada.

Most Forest City users, according to Good, are “tourists” or ex-couch potatoes lured into cycling for its perceived fitness benefits.

A project manager for junior programs for Cycling Canada, he fully supports the new velodrome project, saying the Ottawa Bicycle Club’s 1,5001,800 members make it one of Canada’s strongest clubs and community interest in cycling remains strong.

“With the sheer number of riders in Ottawa, it will be easy,” he says. “It won’t have any problem at all sustaining itself.”

Not-for-profit status would allow the corporation to issue income tax receipts to donors, and Corner, organizer of the Preston Street Criterium race, says an unidentified individual has offered to kick-start fundraising with $10,000.

Becoming a not-for-profit would also lead to official recognition by the Ontario Cycling Association and Sport Alliance Ontario, the provincial sport development agency.

Where an Ottawa velodrome would be located is as yet unknown. Moving into something like a former hockey rink – the minimum track footprint is similar to that of a regulation National Hockey League surface – would reduce costs, but not every empty building will do since 7.6-metre ceilings are required to accommodate a banked cycling track.

International standards for cycling tracks are 250 metres and longer, which excludes London and Burnaby, but Milton will make that grade. Ottawa project leaders say a 166-to 200-metre track is feasible, with an estimated timeline to build one of 18-24 months if all goes well.

“Ottawa does actually have a hidden track cycling heritage,” Westwood says, referring not only to the six-day race in 1936, but also to a quarter-mile (400-metre) oval built in 1898 on University of Ottawa property near what is now the Campus Transit-way station. Another half-century later, the Oval was demolished to make way for a science building.

The timing for an Ottawa velodrome is good, project officers add. Besides public interest in cycling, inspiration can be drawn from such feats as the Tour of Italy triumph for B.C.’s Ryder Hesjedal and a 2012 Olympic bronze medal in women’s team pursuit.

They argue that track cycling is “perfect” for developing elite racers because it’s a safe environment and because coaches can monitor a group of riders much easier on a track than on a road.

gholder@ottawacitizen.com Twitter.com/HolderGord

Illustration:
• Chris Mikula, Ottawa Citizen / From left, Peter Tregunno, Doug Corner and Kris Westwood are the promoters for a project to build a velodrome cycling facility in Ottawa.